Page 11 of Princess Seeks Dragon
“Second-in-command? Who’s in charge? Shouldn’t I talk to them?”
“You’re going to be the one in charge. Normally, it’s me for lawn and landscaping, and Vanessa for garden center and the floral department, but with us out of town...”
My stomach twists. My brother’s built an empire, not a massive one, but one just the right size for a modern, modest dragon. Big enough to bring in the gold, small enough to be cozy and to protect without a clan surrounding him.
I don’t want to break it, especially since I’m all the clan he has over here, and I didn’t stay to support him.
“You going to be all right, Graham? Honestly, the place runs itself. I’ve got the schedule fairly well set up until June, but still, emergencies come up, new clients call to get on our books... I ought to hire a proper assistant, maybe an assistant manager, especially because Vanessa intends to stay home with Murdo, at least for a while. But we’ll conduct all the interviews and post the job this summer when we come home.”
My brother is talking, explaining, lost in a fog of responsibility.
No way I’m jealous of all the worrying he must be doing about his wife, his business, his child...
Being a repo man is so much easier—and it works with the rage I feel all the time. The feeling that someone has something I need and they’re hiding it, or it’s right under my nose and I’m too stupid to find it.
Or worse, I missed it. Maybe it was right in front of me all along, and I just missed it.
It’s easy to drop out of the human face and slide into my halfling form, hiss and snort, blow a little ash in their faces, and bare my fangs.
“You’re not listening. I said I paid all the utilities for May. Payroll is set up for you to plug the hours in. I’m putting you in at a manager’s salary, all right?”
“Manager? I’m the default owner twice over!” I snap.
“You get room and board, free run of the house and everything in it—but you touch that bottle of Glenfiddich and I’ll break your horns clean off,” Ian growls. “Fine, manager’s salary plus 30 percent—ah, don’t be greedy. I know you weren’t making half as much in California.”
“You have no idea what I made.” My smirk is sinister, but Ian doesn’t look impressed.
“Aye, and I don’t want to. Likely what you made is trouble and bad company. You can use my car or the work truck while you’re here, but leave Van’s little red car alone. It’s her first baby, and she’s a bit sentimental about it.”
I roll my eyes. “I got it, I got it. Proper hold she has on you, doesn’t she? Right by the short and curlies.”
My brother shakes his head. “You sound more stupid every time you open your mouth, Graham. You were the clever one growing up, and I was the one plodding along, happier with a spade in my hand than a book. You’d never know it now.”
He knows how to cut me, my brother, but I can’t complain. I’ve been doing the same thing to him. I’ll be glad when he goes on his trip and happier when he returns, hopefully before I succumb to death by suburbia.
“Is Jax Alley still open?” I ask, remembering the sketchy roadhouse outside of town as the only place where you can walk the line between “good boy” and true dragon without feeling out of place in Pine Ridge.
Ian glares at me. “I’ll not have you getting soused and coming into my place of business pickled like a herring,” he snaps.
“You sound like Mom.”
“Mother would have a few choice words to say to you if she knew you were only hanging out in a CrossRealms hoping to put your seed in some dragoness—any dragoness! And what kind of daughter-in-law would that be, Graham? What kind of wife? Some crime lord’s muscle... Innocent blood on her hands...” Ian stalks around his desk, muttering.
I swallow down a retort. I like being muscle. I like knowing that there are dragon females watching me hold my own, proving myself in the darkness of a CrossRealms, where there are more evil monsters than innocent ones. True, most humans don’t know they’re walking around with monsters, but the energy of being at the intersection of the mortal realm and a hellish realm eventually makes most humans angry and dark, anyway. “Not everyone in a CrossRealms is bad. Remember, most of them are just normal people.”
“Near enough everyone! I know what a CrossRealms does to a person. You like it, you adrenaline junkie.”
“What other jobs let a dragon act like a dragon?” My skin itches, and I see scales starting to form on my arms. How can Ian stay so calm? I’m ready to lash out.
“What d’you think a dragon is, laddie? We are honorable, noble defenders, scourges of the great attack armies, guardians of the flocks, allies of the gargoyle and Orc, enemies of the—”
“My God, would you listen to yourself? You’re telling yourself fairy stories, Ian. There’s nothing and no one to defend these days. There are precious few women of our kind who even let their dragon out—and that’s the kind I want. Fierce. Accepting of my true forms. Able to bear the next generation.”
Ian shakes his head sadly. “Not all dragonnesses are dragonborn. Some human women have iron scales under their soft skin. You’re just too impatient to see it.”
I’m fuming, but I don’t say anything. Hard to pack an argumentative punch when I’m starting to wonder if he’s right.
